Once we started talking about sex we couldn’t stop

When Kinsey first released the results of his initial 11,000 interviews it was not just the public that he shocked: it was his fellow academics tooCorbis

The Times, August 17 2018, 5:00pm

Let’s start with an easy question. “During your marriage, how old were you the first time you had sexual intercourse with a woman other than your wife?” Now for one that requires a bit more thinking. “What percentage of your sexual partners did you pick up in public toilets?” Finally, if you are still with us, “How often did you have sex with animals from puberty until your marriage?”

Seventy years ago this year, Alfred Kinsey made the unsayable sayable, with a survey that asked the above questions and a lot more besides. The US sex researcher then published the results in two books: Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male and, five years later, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female.

The books were a sensation.…

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